We have LIMERICK and HAIKU topics for those poems. This thread is for other types of poems be they Free Verse, Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnets, Clerihews, simple rhyming couplets or any other kind of poem.

I only aske that we not criticize what members share, and that we follow FSM rules, so I won’t use “isms” or politics in my poems.

It is hard to get teenagers into poetry, so I wrote this first poem because it was relevant to their lives. In our state, teens must first get a Learner’s Permit and drive with their parents for 6 months before they can apply for a driver’s license.

We parents, like heavy hailstones bursting crops, issue orders, gasps, and hisses until you brake, commanding us to stop!

I sense the learners permit trembling in your pocket. In promised muteness, I stare only at the back of your head, High ponytail tail quaking in sync with your long, silver earrings.

Turning left into heavy traffic, you ease into the nearest lane, turn on the signal, glance over your shoulder, and easily slide into the right lane.

Suddenly my seat is a down comforter, my foot no longer braking the floor. You know to look for danger, safe openings and necessary stops. I’ve learned to hand you the keys, permitting myself to finally hitchhike a ride in the opposite direction.

TICK-TACK-TOE

My father’s broad forehead, striped with deep horizontal and vertical lines, forms many tick-tack-toe puzzles. Ancient maps on parchment skin echo his travels through years of six day work, family disease, pride and failure of progeny, and the simple trails of daily discoveries. To him these wrinkles are ugly as he now stretches shunning hands to halt my camera’s intrusion. He’s blind to the beauty I see in each pattern of sharps and to all my X’s and 0’s that fill every open square.

Joan, those are brilliant and moving. Poetry with a purpose and lots of heart. I hope this thread takes off and that you share some of your other work. It’s easy enough to toss off the odd AABBA in comparison.

My father’s broad forehead, striped with deep horizontal and vertical lines, forms many tick-tack-toe puzzles. Ancient maps on parchment skin echo his travels through years of six day work, family disease, pride and failure of progeny, and the simple trails of daily discoveries. To him these wrinkles are ugly as he now stretches shunning hands to halt my camera’s intrusion. He’s blind to the beauty I see in each pattern of sharps and to all my X’s and 0’s that fill every open square.

Members, chime in.

I love how "Members, chime in" is given its own stanza, emphasizing the power and beauty of that final line.

the door Is a door to swing both ways? a door can be large or it can be small. it lets things in and it keeps a thing out. barbarian at my door? maybe sales person nothing more. on a day to day living, I find doors can open smiles. in a sweeping motion, I hold the door open, good morning with a smile. A choice has to be made. do they ignore or do they reply in kind? it's a simple thing that knows no skin? Maybe just a small justice for all? but then again it just a door, it may be big it may be small. it keeps things in and keeps things out. I have the key after all.

Even in March’s frigid air, the forsythia blooms first, a gold unfurling among bushes of naked twigs and dead straw grass. Like a singular shaft of sun, it stands amidst gray skies, a precursor for others’ blossoming. Grass, tulips, roses and petunias delay, waiting for the accepting assurance of April irrigation, a stronger fist of sun, and the ramps of sprays and fertilizers.

How I ache to emulate this first forsythia, risking my blooming before others have packed solid once slippery trails of spring mud; instead of always being a June geranium, seasonally rooted in my red envy of its yellow courage.

Of course I don't see you as Bill Sykes. Yikes. You are more like Robin Williams at the top of his comedic skills. (I had to look up St. Trinian films. Not seen them in America.)

I so appreciate the "A" mgh. I know you are a writer. If you have a poem to share, don't hesitate. I had two published and also have many rejection letters. I just gave up trying to publish and now just write for my own enjoyment and to help me clarify the vagaries of life's experiences.

Newly single and alone, I drove to my son’s wedding and hit a fat black dachshund, red chum spattered in a circle, a ruby ring around my front tire.

The owner carefully offered, “Not your fault. Female across the road. Never could teach him the dangers of these mean streets.”

His young son opened their screen door, an older sister instantly retrieving him. My sudden remorse for the boy’s strings circling his flattened heart elicited no permanent pity. Next year a new puppy will enchant his eyes, ensconce his heart. Maybe sooner.

Driving slower now around normal curves and smooth straight highways, I ponder what to say, my son asking for last minute advice. Hand him the ring. Proffer platitudes.

Let him discover soon enough a dog pound’s renewable love purchased for only forty dollars and a can of food.

DEATH OF DOXIE

For the first time in years, my dog didn’t dash out to dance his greeting around my car. Unable to hurdle the barricade of pain, only the drumming of his incessant tail lead me to the corner where he’d dragged paralyzed hind legs.

Called the vet, told the nurse, “It’s time and I need to stay with him.” She snapped “No appointments left, drop him off. We’ll finish it later.” She didn’t understand this singular dog who was only mine, who feared a broom casually leaning on a wall, who cowered from large tumbleweeds summersaulting across my lawn. So I sat in the office, holding his vibrating body, waiting for the attention that should be paid to one so timid and loving. He would not have understood my absence.

The doctor muzzled his Doxie nose in blue Velcro, unnecessary for a dog ignorant of cruel jaws. As the syringe shot relief into his paw, I held his face close, mumbling litanies, “Just look at me, no more pain.”

His faithful eyes fastened to mine, and then his kind heart stopped, no glassy fading look, just brown open eyes still trusting. Only the silence of the stethoscope and the protruding tip of his wafer tongue signaled my invisibility.

At the desk, I paid with a check and my heart, and left, trailing the loneliest objects in the world, a disconnected leash and a collar circling air.

At my home, I tossed in the garbage a warm, odorous dog bed and stained food dish. At times I managed a smile when thinking of his eyes that reflected no betrayal because unlike Candy, I didn’t, “let no stranger shoot my dog.”